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The Importance of Not Being Present (Pen Y Craigeiu) May 2021

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The Importance of Not Being Present (Pen Y Craigeiu) May 2021

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Foot prints of water voles, hedgehogs and other animals

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Caitlin Kiely is a practice-led-researcher who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2020. Since then she has has co-founded an artist-led studio and workshop space in Birmingham. She regularly leads workshops surrounding site at Birmingham School of Art and focus' on our relationship with outdoor spaces within her role as Visual Arts Programmer for the charity Sense.

Eleanor Wemyss graduated from Royal Collage of Art in 2020. Her practice 'The Importance of Not Being Present' began when she won the Gordan Pickard Research Drawing Bursary in 2019. Her use of exploration of un-seen land encourages viewers to understand the impact we have on land when we need to observe it. She is currently an illustration tutor at Winchester School of Art.

Yimin Qiao is a 2021 graduate from the Royal College of Art. As a multimedia narrator, her current work attempts to trigger interactivity with both the images she creates and the narrative, systemic structures of reality she questions.

Yimin’s artworks have received the iJungle Illustration Award, Graduate 360 (top 10 graduates) and were collected in the 3x3 Annual. She has recently been featured by It’s Nice That with an interview.

Yuzhen Cai is an illustrator and researcher based in Shanghai and London. Her mixed cultural background grounded her illustration interests in community and cross-cultural issues. She obtained her BA degree in illustration at the Camberwell College of Arts in 2019, and MRes degree in communication design at the Royal College of Art in 2021.

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Black, S. (2014), ‘illumination through illustration: Research methods and authorial practice’, Journal of Illustration, 1:2, https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10026.1/11843/BLACK%20S%20Illumination

%20through%20illustration%20TEXT%20ONLY.pdf?sequence=1/. Accessed 01 June 2021.

Gray, C. and Malins, J. (2004), Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art

and Design, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Jones, Rachel (2013), On the Value of Not Knowing: Wonder, Beginning Again and Letting Be, London: Black Dog Publishing.

Gannon, R. and Fauchon, M. (2021),  Illustration Research Methods, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Leah Fusco (2020), Understanding the Field, Live event recorded and on padlet, https://padlet.com/understandingthefield/9hxvep40b501n7j2

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Methodology
Ongoing
Being
Doing
Showing
Site

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Yimin Qiao, Eleanor Wemyss, Caitlin Kiely and Yuzhen Cai discuss their practices in terms of methodology, adaption and the ongoing process of research based illustration. Through four different practices they outline the tools that are needed in order to place their illustration practice into this space that joins both illustration and research together. The paper is divided into three sections 'being' 'doing' 'showing'; providing an over arching structure to their ever evolving journey into the world of Illustration Research Practice. Drawing upon ideas of instinct, adaptation and rigour they begin to draw out similarities that carry through all four of their practices, referencing where illustration has been and where their practices are now. They discuss the openness of site as a frame for subject, borrowed technologies and moving outside of the boundaries of traditional illustrative practices. Formed on padlet and talked about over video calls the process of the paper mirrors that of their experience of being a student in a pandemic. This paper like their practices is seen as an ongoing investigation into illustration research practice.

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process, participation + space

(Caitlin)

For my illustration-research-practice, the process is the work. The presentation therefore lies within the physical ‘showing’ or ‘doing’ rather than being something which is observed or consumed at distance.

I invite my audience in as participants - allowing them to reconsider their proximity to the land. As my work derives from experiences of being in the landscape and focus' in on our human relationship to landscapes, it is important that the form reflects this.

For example; presenting my narratives as audio files allows my work to be taken and experienced in a physical space as opposed to a formal exhibition context. By making the walking process part of the storytelling process, it explores the spatial parameters of the text.

This not only allows them to access the text but helps them become an extension of the work. They become active participants in both the storytelling process and how the narrative is presented in space.

(Eleanor)

Presentation of my work is where it becomes more complicated, it is where I jump between providing a a series of work usually in book form to inform the audience and engage them. At the same time my message is do not visit this site; as enquirers humans want to see and experience what they are excited about. The idea of gaining knowledge is often partnered with the need to know all. I am asking my audience to do the opposite of what I have done. I am asking them to trust me and my findings.

The work is when stripped back essentially data, it is a series of pieces of information collected and un-edited. Being a research illustrator means that I curate my collected data to inform rather than invite. I invite the audience into the project knowing that they can not immerse themselves. It often appears that there is something not there; that space between audience and site has been created and it is me. Often the studio is the space where the most interesting work is so re-creating that space of thought and reflection acts as a support to the final outcome. They can take away the book but the work is my experience and where I started as the observer they have now taken that place and I am the presenter. It is important here to state that I am not the author of the work, the prints, images and sounds collected were created by the site, the site is the author I am the presenter.

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Viewer/Audience/Participant/or Collaborator?
Do they play a part in the presentation of your research?

CK: Through the process of 'showing' I require a level of participation from my audience. As the process is the work, it is important that they move away from being a Viewer observing the work at a distance and instead step into the work- occupying a certain role and in-between spaces. They are an essential component to the storytelling process and through active participation become a collaborator.

EW: The audience move from between a viewer and a participant, I requite a level of trust in my audience that they will assist with the regrowth of land by staying away. The viewer then becomes a collaborator with the knowledge that the space between site and audience that they continue to make ensures the project is ongoing. At this point in time I am moving between site and audience and am becoming that space.

YQ: I want my audience to use mundane elements as clues and step into my story by accident. But the relationship with the audience is always changing. Sometimes they are my invitees, and sometimes we are the people who exchange information with each other. But more often maybe I come from them too. Because we share a lot of materials together, what I'm doing is taking these things out of the everyday perspective in a different way.

YC: My practice usually involves people from a certain community or culture. While showing my work, the interviewees are not only the viewer and narrator, they are also the active participants of the research who help me to reflect. During the encounters, illustration helps to negotiate my position to the interviewees and prevents me from taking things for granted.

Do you present your body of research or process or both?

CK: Throughout my research process, I use opportunities to 'show' as ways of testing ideas and how the research process can be articulated in a tangible way. For example testing how an audience might connect video footage and spoken text enabled me to think about my audience as narrators and therefore intrinsic to the storytelling process. Rather than showing my entire body of research, I approach showing as a way of translating my process. For example since working with audio narrative, it allows my audience to mirror my research process as they walk, read, imagine and situate the narrative existing in a physical space.

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‘Being, Doing, Showing’ is an article comprising four collective voices; Eleanor Wemyss, Caitlin Kiely, Yuzhen Cai and Yimin Qiao as they explore their innovative, experimental and speculative approaches to illustration research. With the field of illustration becoming increasingly broad and porous, these practitioners will engage in a dialogue about what it means to do research in, with and through practice. They will unpack their methodologies, suggesting how it is used to trigger conversation, deepen thoughts and bring focus to the overlooked details and in between spaces.

What brings these voices together is how they practice illustration. Collectively, they consider it a process of critical thinking, through reflection and investigative making. As they position themselves somewhere in between the roles of; witness, observer, narrator, translator and visualiser, throughout this article they will explain how these different lenses help them to gather material and engage closely with their subject matter.

The text is presented in three parts; Illustration as 1.‘Being’, 2.‘Doing’ and 3.‘Showing’. Rather than presenting four singular practices, the article will instead draw upon the inherent links between. By placing methodology at the centre of the discussion, it allows each person to articulate their practice in relation to their many acts of ‘doing’. Underneath each subheading, is a list of key words and methods associated with their collective ways of working. Each practitioner will respond to these prompt words, showing how we might take the same method or tool, but utilise and explore it with different intentions.

The format of the text reflects that of a Padlet page. This is reflective of their collective experience of postgraduate education, which was held mainly online during the pandemic. The online space provided a meeting place between four different practices, which allowed them to dissect their methodological approaches to the practice of illustration. In pulling their practices apart and observing them in closer detail, the practitioners have started to identify strong links between them.

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‘                 ’ is an article exploring the innovative application of methodology across four emerging illustration research practices. Eleanor Wemyss, Caitlin Kiely, Yuzhen Cai and Yimin Qiao will take an introspective look at their research process- breaking it down into three acts; ‘Being’, ‘Doing’ and ‘Showing’. They will draw upon key methods and how they are used at different stages of a research project.

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The lights are candles, the city is a cake.

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Through out this paper Eleanor, Yuzhen, Yimin and Caitlin have drawn upon key approaches that allow their practice to bring together illustration and Research as on practice. They have drawn out and identified approaches that connect their very different areas of work together.

Starting with the idea of 'Being' methodologies such as Instinct, intention, the space between site and position became the four over arching methods of approach to a new site or project. The importance of not trying to predict an outcome allows them to step outside the bounds of the traditional illustrator and form, as Yimin stated, this intimate relationship with their site. They use their position to inform their intention and it is this approach that allows the conversation between site and practitioner to begin on an equal standing.

'Doing' became a conversation on reflection, rigour and adaption to site. In not trying to manipulate what their are researching they are able to open their work up to surprises and allow the subject to steer the work rather than illustrator. Using multi-layered process' is essential in the formation of the work as well as reflection, revisitation and rigour. The Act of thinking is also a process in all four practices that links the studio and site together. A process of
Time >>> Reflection >>> Rigour >>> Revisitation
ensures the authenticity of the relationship between site and practitioner. It is in this section that we begin to see that although the process' being used by them are also being re-ordered and adapted according to the need of project at the time, this open approach to site allows the researcher and illustrator to merge as one.

The final act of 'showing' we start to see the position of the illustrator once again being questioned. What flows through all four practices is the acknowledgement of 'ongoing'. They are aware often that the process is as important as the outcome and there-fore highlights that whilst this is still important the research is never ending. The position of the illustrator shifts between Narrator (Caitlin) Author (Yimin) Investigater (Yuzhen) and reporter (Eleanor), again utilising multi-disciplinary methods (not limiting to imagery) to communicate with their viewers/audience/participators/experiencers. We start to see a level of trust is forming between the latter and the facilitator.

Much like the four approaches to practice being presented in this paper it is becoming more apparent that Research Illustration is an ongoing process, still in its infant stages with much to unpack as new practitioners emerge in the industry.

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process, participation + space

(Caitlin)

For my illustration-research-practice, the process is the work. The presentation therefore lies within the physical ‘showing’ or ‘doing’ rather than being something which is observed or consumed at distance.

I invite my audience in as participants - allowing them to reconsider their proximity to the land. As my work derives from experiences of being in the landscape and focus' in on our human relationship to landscapes, it is important that the form reflects this.

For example; presenting my narratives as audio files allows my work to be taken and experienced in a physical space as opposed to a formal exhibition context. By making the walking process part of the storytelling process, it explores the spatial parameters of the text.

This not only allows them to access the text but helps them become an extension of the work. They become active participants in both the storytelling process and how the narrative is presented in space.

(Yimin)

I like the word "illustration" and "illustrator" is because of the sense of duration in them. "Illustrate" is a verb, which means there will be a narrator responsible for narrating things to others. It is about a process rather than just the outcome. Although illustration in the mainstream's impression is inclined to picture display mode. I think bringing back the concept of the process might bring a sense of authorship and another perspective of narrating.

Making is a process, and so is showing. What I prefer to do is to create a multi-layered approach that fully knits the entire narrative system. The medium can be diverse. In my project, The Great Exhibition(2021), the website, manuals, and videos complement each other and point to the story I want to tell.

There is no need to show off the diversity of media in the work, just each subject in my opinion has its most suitable carrier. I like to use everyday things as a medium and find their narrative potential. I use flyers, zoom meeting, advertising, and other elements that are visible on a daily basis. Maybe this is due to my background in graphic design, I know that these visual elements are themselves telling the story to their audience all the time, so they could be played with as media. I want my audience to use mundane elements as clues and step into my story by accident.

(Eleanor)

Showing is where the role of illustrator comes to the for-front of my practice. The work is on going and therefore this needs to be presented. However in order to highlight this to the audience I draw on imagery and sound. Inviting the viewer to look at the work in quiet contemplation. This mirrors my actions in the studio and in the land.

These small signs are alone pieces of data or proof of existence however it is the illustration imagery that highlights the importance of the space between humanity and land. The land becomes a sacred and hidden space that I am only privy too and the audience are there to receive the information, they are not collaborators but more an experiencer putting trust in my authorship of the work. Using objects like books to create the narrative helps to isolate the viewer in order to feel that stillness that my images have portrayed. It is a presentation of ideas that viewers should be able to adapt to other areas of land, yet un-explored. Often the studio space is the one site that an audience can be invited too, it mimics my mind, this can be moved and recreated. The only constant in the work presented between projects is the authenticity of colour, scale and presence, the rest is informed by the land itself.

（Yuzhen）

My practice regards “showing” as “illustration encounters”. Rather than showing A to B, which is a one-directional presentation, illustration encounters happen to anyone at any time in any space providing that illustration is in its presence. The agency of the narrator can shift between anyone/anything within the context, and even the context itself.

To better explain, the happenings of illustration encounters in my research project can be roughly divided into three stages -“before”,“in-between”, and “after”: “Before” doing the research, viewing key illustrators' work such as Chiang Yee's graphic novel and William Kentridge's metaphoric making process have an influence over my practice. Besides, being situated in the in-between passages, the context becomes one of the narrators of the illustration. “In-between” the research actions, I use illustration as a reflective tool, from which I can construct a dialogue between images, interviewees, and myself. Later, I bring the images back to the interviewees or participants to intrigue deeper discussions - the illustration is also the mediation that negotiates my position to the interviewees. “After” the completion of collecting data (both pictorial and textual), I curate materials by purposely selecting and arranging texts and images, arguing the interactions of the text and images can create meanings as new knowledge produced. I used this process as another round of reflective practice of reprocessing, reorganizing and reviewing. These three stages can be repeated cyclically if needed.

Moreover, the circulation of the illustration projects is more than the reproduction of images. No matter through digital media or situated in a physical space, the encounters all trigger sensual experiences. Considering the accessibility of different audiences on different platform, sometimes it is also requested to alter the final circulation to suit for various circumstances.

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Use of methodical and or experiential approaches :

CK: My practice relies on a combination of methodical and experiential approaches. For example I employ methodical planning when I conduct site visits - often gaging a route through google earth but once on location I avoid being navigated my maps and my only navigable device is my reflections, observations and my memory of the site on google earth. Deviating between methodical and experiential allows me to situate my practice in relevant spaces whilst also allowing me the freedom to draw upon the tool kit we always have to our disposal when walking - our senses.

YQ: Although I now value process as my methodology, I used to be a result-oriented person. So I can better understand the way I can grow in my work through comparison. Sometimes it is not the creator who completes a work, but what she has made carry her forward. I prefer the latter way.

In the field of art, I don't want to make work that is just reasonable. But just as scientists test again and again whether the experimental results are correct, I also need to use the rigorous attitude to confirm whether the emotions in the works are honest and effectively delivered. Because sometimes we unconsciously lie to ourselves and our work.

YC: In our regular meetings, through our dialogues, we identified how our methodology are different towards illustration. While Caitlin and Eleanor have coherent methods in their illustration practice, Yimin and myself have different methods to meet the needs of different illustration projects. Therefore, when it comes to "doing", me and Yimin can not talk about our practice without referencing a certain project. We situate ourselves in a context intuitively, then we reference a methodology. Under the framing of methodology, we could build up our practice structurally and analyse critically. Meantime, the methods might change and adapt with the ongoing reflections.

////////Intuition////////
//                             //
//The//toolbox//of//illustration//
//                                                       //

ongoing                            illustration
//                                                      //
//                  methods                    //
//////////////////////////////////////////

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As we explore the contemporary position of the illustrator within a research context, let us begin with a framework of reference - reflecting upon where the discipline originated, its function and how this has informed how the discipline is widely practiced.

By acknowledging the illustrator's historical proximity to research, we will explore their progression; from accompanying the research(er) through pictorial documentation, to stepping into the role of researcher themselves.

It is through delving into real world subject matters, that illustration is able to infiltrate scholarly inquiries; bringing it to non-specialist and interdisciplinary audiences (Gannon & Fauchon, 2021). In order to examine the porous role of the illustrator, this paper will unpack and examine the importance of methodology; as acts of being, doing and showing. It is the reciprocal relationship between thinking, doing and making which gives agency to illustration; reframing it as a creative vehicle in which to analyse, pose question or spark debate.

Caitlin Kiely, Eleanor Wemyss, Yuzhen Cai and Yimin Qiao will be exploring the differences and similarities in their approaches to research practice, with a particular concentration on working without boundaries in order to expand illustration into the world of research, and research into the world of illustration. The paper was born out of numerous discussions comparing and contrasting the individual approaches to illustration research practice.

The text is presented in three parts: Four practices in relation to 1.'Being' 2.'Doing 3.'Showing'. These three sections represent to three first approaches to illustration research. By exploring these in parallel we will draw out relationships between methodologies and approaches used within the four practices with contrasting intentions.

The format of the text reflects that of a Padlet page. This is reflective of their collective experience of postgraduate education during the pandemic. The online space provided a meeting place between four illustration researchers and two countries, allowing them to discuss their individual methodologies and analyse their approaches to illustration research. In doing this they have presented a series of strong links that travel through their practices.

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process + reflection

(Caitlin)
My thinking and doing in the landscape has a direct translation into my doing in the studio. This becomes cyclical process of revisiting which allows my research to continually deepen.

Reflection is therefore a method which underpins and is bound within my entire process as an illustration research practitioner. Whether that be when; I’m out on location reading landscapes through an emotive human lens, writing on site or when I’m in the studio extracting landscapes from archival footage.

It is the ongoing reflection which enables me to enrich my research - carrying it between environments and through different materials and mediums. It also determines the visual language of my practice. By drawing upon my reflective writing and observations made on site, it impacts how I approach materials and mediums - often using them to visually and practically work through ideas and drive my investigation further. Process and reflection therefore go hand in hand as it is what I do with a material which transforms it into an illustrative or communicative device. For example using film editing as a storytelling method which enables me to physically extract scenes and alter narrative structures.

(Eleanor)

Process and reflection alternate throughout my research practice. When conducting research on-site, I begin very methodically by adopting a scientific approach - however once back in the studio, the reflection becomes just as important in order to process the information gathered from site. It is only through this that I can establish a direction for the next site visit.

Time also becomes an important factor as the more I reflect on my findings, the more I understand the impact of what I am doing. My borrowed process' allow me to engage with a site even in my absense. I am merely the facilitator- choosing where to place my paper, then leaving. I typically return a day later, observe what tracks have been recorded and the process goes on. The idea of borrowing methodologies first mentioned to me by Leah Fusco in conversation with myself and Caitlin, highlights the need to look for methods outside of illustration. This is what will provide me with the tools to explore the site and begin to converse with it. The process then becomes a un-invited collaboration.

(Yimin)

'Doing' is to breathe with the process.

I allow myself to be in a situation of ambiguity. As Nietsche's argument about unknowing, this is more like a state of thought and life rather than a hole that needs to be filled.1 To accept the possibility of being inspired, changed, and even failed in the process is liberating for me. As these elements are all important sparks of creativity, not repetition.

The concept 'reflective practice' is derived from Donald Schön(1983). He emphasized the bridging function of reflection to research and practice. It is in this iterative process that we think about what we are doing and reshaping action while we are doing it2

The methodology leads me to quickly respond to my intuition around materials and reflect on the purpose of my actions. It makes creating a cyclic process. For my work in particular, I usually reflect on mundane objects that appear around me and add a layer of imagination to them to make them out of the familiar range. Connecting the urban elements to the subtle human experience, makes them rediscovered. Rediscovery means rethinking. We think about the things we invent as we think about ourselves.

At first, I didn't have a very clear understanding of my intentions. As the rapid actions and reflections accumulated more and more, I was able to analyze the commonality from them and gradually build my practice systematically.

(Yuzhen)
The illustration is never a mere image for consumption; Its ongoing process in which text and image interact and clash to make fluid meanings allows the potential of adapting illustration as a multimodal tool for communicating ideas. Moreover, Stephanie Black (2014) discusses the possibility of thinking illustration as research, she proposed illustration in research which describes:

• Research is initiated and unfolded in illustration;

• the questions and challenges are informed by the need of illustrating;

• Illustration drives the methodology or the specific method;

On this account, my research projects usually explore the unknown subject through illustrating. The themes are informed by my need from being an illustrator. While illustrating, questions and problems occurred, which needs further interrogation as a researcher. I would look for the most suitable tools to fit in my toolbox in the service of research. Essentially the tools might vary according to different projects, however, the skeleton of the toolbox, which is the overall framing methodology, stays the same under the name of illustration as research.

With the example of Homes in Mobility, it was initiated in illustrator’s needs to visualize narratives of homes from Chinese ethnic participants. I applied reflective practice to examine the illustrating process, during which I identified the requirement for reflexivity. I thus designed a dialogic process between interviews, illustrations and autoethnography to examine how my positions change and how that prevents me from seeing. I later argued that this dialogic process facilitates reflexivity rather than a single action, and this ongoing dialogue is the illustration methodology as reflexive.

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location / intention/ position

Simplify and break down what you have already written

(Caitlin)

My practice led research exists somewhere between site and studio. As I am dealing with our human relationship to landscapes, I work primarily with industrially scarred or healing spaces such as quarries - considering them as meeting places between humans and nature.

It is therefore important for me as the illustrator to oscillate between environments; engaging closely with my subject matter from different vantage points. By working initially with a range of materials such as films, archival documentaries and texts; I study how landscapes are represented or used as metaphorical vehicles in literature.

Unlike many site specific practices, I approach site without an intention to document, collect data or find anything specific. It is about being present and perceptive. I adopt different roles when exploring a site; observer, reader, investigator, witness and storyteller. Stepping into these roles both in and out of the studio help me to navigate myself primarily through what I can see, feel and imagine. Simple actions such as sitting, walking and reflecting within the landscape allow me to take different positions within my writing. Whether that be writing from the position of a human, narrator or the landscape itself - each perspective offers an alternative reading of the land. I speculate and construct narratives by reading into what remains.

(Eleanor)

As a research illustrator my only intention is to widen the space between site and audience. The site and studio act as one but function differently. My practice is formed on the basis of allowing the land to present itself in my absence. By not planning or predicting the site, I am able to stumble upon new information. This lack of control over the site and what is gathered, positions me more as a silent collaborator with the land.

My intention is to highlight the importance of distance when working with re-wilding or re-healing spaces. When present on site, I understand my impact on the activity within that area. I therefore minimise the amount of time I spend physically on site - choosing to make several short visits before physically moving onto 'doing' research. Using the act of walking and exploring without planning or maps I am able to find an area of rich activity, embedded with narratives.

When referring to 'narrative' within my practice-led-research, I am moving away from a human centric idea of narrative by collecting traces of activity in the land. This allows me to build an understanding and record of what is going on and who is present in this space without being present to see it.  At this point I am merely a silent observer waiting for an invitation to explore, allowing activity to resume rather than be interrupted by my presence.

(Yimin)
My practice intends to reconnect with my surroundings. Gazing and criticising at the most mundane of urban landscapes in a way that is both visual and interactive.

We all have our physical position. But does this count as 'Being'? Nowadays based on the change in our ways of seeing, an immersive watching experience has the ability to invite us into the world it offers. Our minds can easily shuffle between different places and get exciting experiences. Being an invitee under these conditions, our role is usually to be a traveller or a ghost floating above another world. The experience is provided and predicted.

We gradually detached from our location. And the detachment seems to be a way of enduring reality.

My project is based on the context that the pandemic almost shut down and emptied the city. It contains a series of imaginations around the uses of structural public facilities and I made "manuals" for them as though they are failed to the city.

When we were facing the ruins that human beings left behind, I put myself in the position of an alien, introducing human inventions in absurd ways.

During the process, I re-build a connection to an environment that I would normally ignore on a daily basis. On the one hand, I am a fictional outsider, but on the other hand, this new form of relationship is far more intimate than being placed in it and ignoring it.

‘Being' is a decision about feeling and seeing. It provides me with raw materials. I decide to stop, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of confusion. Being in a position is to recognize its connection with myself.

(Yuzhen)
My illustration research interrogates how to use illustration as the reflexive methodology to illustrate Chinese migrants' perceptions of homes. I consider "being" as the position held throughout the research.

"Being" triggers the intention of the research, informs the methodology, and even drives to answer research questions. For example, my practice-led research project Homes in Mobility is inspired by me being a Chinese migrant situated in a non-binary, ambiguous, and in-between cultural area. I argued that compared with Chinese migrants who sailed to the UK 100 years ago who saw and were seen in a strikingly exotic fashion, the cultural binary opposition of the East and West has been diluted in a world of mobility. However, existing illustrations of Chinese ethnic migrants are still predominated by an exaggerated contrast of the East and West in visual representations. Being an illustrator, I hope to offer alternative illustration interpretations which capture the ambiguity and fluidity of migration experiences, which triggers the research question of how Chinese ethnic migrant interviewees perceive homes and how to illustrate their perceptions concerning my non-binary position.

With the practice unfolding, the positions can nevertheless divert the research journey, requiring further investigations as a researcher. While illustrating, as part of the thinking-through-making process, I identified how my position as a Chinese migrant unconsciously stops me from seeing, thus calling for a reflexive methodology that takes my non-binary position into account.

Additionally, "being" is always evolving with the interaction of positions. Being a researcher and an illustrator simultaneously, I hope to rethink ontology, epistemology, and methodology in illustration research with its own language. This combined "being" inquires new references on illustration as research.

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presenting process

viewer/audience/participant ?

position / intention / experience / learning

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methodical vs experiential
(Yuzhen / El)  (Yimin/ Caitlin)

reflection as ongoing process?
yimin/Caitlin   (Yuzhen as counter argument) (Yuzhen: mine is also ongoing process, I see Yimin also reference"reflective practice", maybe we can expand on this a bit)

Position / borrowed process

reflection vs analysing

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Roles embedded within an illustration researcher
YQ:
Being a practitioner,  I prefer to think an illustrator's responsibility is not just to create a beautiful layer of skin but a combination of multiple roles.

Because even when we describe our feelings, our words could be incomprehensible to other people. The accurate and subtle feelings an image can deliver must ask the illustrator to have a rigour making process. She/he needs to be a researcher to investigate, to be an editor, a translator to interact with materials.

I like to expand and even challenge my roles as an illustrator to deliver information. Sometimes I'm a carrier of information and sometimes I want to be a bridge. The changing of different roles helps me to be positioned.

CK:
It is really interesting to think about roles, actions or methods which we borrow from other fields which collectively allow the illustrator to; dig deeper, look closer and be that carrier of information between what we see and what we have the capacity to imagine. Being on site is almost like stepping into different characters - all of which offer alternative ways of encountering a space, beyond the physical space.

YC:
Illustration is a highly contextual practice, and its encountering can happen at anytime and anywhere from the act of doing, presenting to viewing.

Therefore, the location in illustration can imply the physical space wherein the practice is being acted, or the cyber community where the images are circulated, as discussed by Caitlin and Yimin. Additionally, the subject of location does not only speak to the illustrator or viewer, the location itself with things therein also have agency, as pointed out by Eleanor. The fluidity and ongoingness of illustration hence determine the nature of its location.

My illustration practice is more or less rooted in a certain culture and situated on the in-between passage of becomings. A lot of my interviewees expressed the perceptions of homes in mobility - how homes have become a mobile “non-place”, which requires more ambiguity and fluidity in illustration practice.

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 Illustration + Autoethnographic writing

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 Illustration + Autoethnographic writing

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I can see in Yimin's work this idea of Rigor that is apparent but there is also a logic to how she works, in the figure 'Ruins" this collection of images collected like an archive alludes to ideas of rest and contemplation. What is the seat there for? Who might use it, it allows the mind to move deeper into and understanding of function. I am beginning to wonder what the role of the intended audience is in the work, they are still just an idea or an illusion.

Her mapping of areas of rest also touches on methods of a town planner or architect. Where must these areas be placed and what is surrounding them. They are objects that I might use in my own work to experience my surroundings. Her work becomes my tool.

It is only through regorous searching that these patterns can form and it is the role of the illustration researcher to highlight the patterns that our audience would not normally contemplate. Yimin highlights the importance of not taking the every day at face value. By highlighting the word 'manual' on a bus stop seat you are immediately looking for the function of the seat, as there is no point of having a manual for something that doesn't function. Or alternatively realising the physical being of the object rather than the digital. During Covid these areas of rest were not used for fear of contamination so what is their function after ........

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This makes me feel like she was visiting a patient repeatedly.

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transcript of my interviewees standing in the in-between area questioning their "being"

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question：how location/intention/position relate to "being"? how you come up with these three key words?

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question：how location/intention/position relate to "being"? how you come up with these three key words?

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When we gathered together last year to give the presentation on our work, we chose "always in situ" as the topic. Always in situ, always on site, the site can be the location where the practice unfolds, or the process where our positions overlap and interact. The common thing we shared in our practice is that the intention of illustration is no longer to present a final image for consumption. Illustration can be contextual participation, the act of thinking-through-making, and the methodology for research.

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Process of un-consented collaboration ('The Importance of Not Being Present' Milford Haven) 2019

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Process of un-consented collaboration ('The Importance of Not Being Present' Milford Haven) 2019

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Milford Haven Power Plant - A view to explore 2019

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Milford Haven Power Plant - A view to explore 2019

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Photo of section of Pembrokeshire Power Plant copy

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(Yuzhen)
Illustration encounters:
when- happens before, during and after illustrating process
where- physical site or cyber space
subject- not only viewer, but also participants, the object that tells the story

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methodology:

Instinct / process / reflection

(Eleanor)

Instinct

Much like Yuzhen my position as an illustrator and researcher seems to bounce between the two. Before Doing I am the illustrator, planing and almost predicting what I am going to illustrate. However once on the site those plans tend to disappear, I become the researcher, looking for signs of life or a narrative in the land.

Instinct is vital to this as I can not predict what is unpredictable. Instinct is engrained in us as illustrators we look for the unseen and see them. Yimin's approach to site almost encompasses instinct and then throws it away. She sees her subject and strips its function and identity back only to re-define what she is showing us. By allowing myself to fall into the world of instinct I am opening  my self up to a silent conversation with the land. These are methods that are often used by researchers and cross over into both categories of illustrator and researcher. The roles begin to combine once on the site.

(Yimin)
The relationship between art practitioners and intuition is a worthy point of study in creation.

As an intuitive image-maker. I always think language is not a perfect human invention. So there must be some terminologies that have not been invented to evidence abstract emotions that we don't have a name for. So in this case, I would choose not to first analyze my actions clearly in words but to listen to my intuition patiently and use it as a guide to move forward.

During the process, I always allow myself to immerse in the environment first and reflect on emotions and feelings. And what I learned through practice is, there must be reasons behind those feelings, which might be environmental factors, historical factors, social and political factors. We just first reflect on them through our personal feelings.

In the field of art, I don't want to make work that is just reasonable. But just as scientists test again and again whether the experimental results are correct, I also need to use the rigorous attitude to confirm whether the emotions in the works are honest and effectively delivered. Because sometimes we unconsciously lie to ourselves and our work.

(Yuzhen)
How I work is almost opposite to instinct. Although my research is usually driven by illustrator’s need, the methods acquire critical analysis. In addition to that, because of the ongoing and contextual nature of illustration practice, instinct decisions need further investigation.

For example, in my project, being an immigrant, i have instinct reactions towards my interviewees, which can be cultivated by culture and social norms. Later, when I’m illustrating, these cultural “instinct” might affect my illustration decision that I take for granted. As the etic and emic of my positions, it is almost impossible to completely separate my experience from other people or environment, and I never mean to disconnect them. However, it is important to be aware of this “taken for granted” to further ask why and interrogate as a researcher.

To be mentioned, raised by both Eleanore and Yimin, there is this unique and interweaving relationship between illustrator and researcher. In the illustrating process, you might need to observe, document, translate, reflect, display… The role of illustrator is naturally enriched in the possibility of taking multiple roles to research. Therefore, when it comes to illustration research, in our meetings, we almost agree that it is not suitable to use institutional arts and science research methodology to guide our practice, illustration can not only be implemented as one single method of visualising data, for example, but also have its own language and agency to apply as the overall methodology.

(Eleanor)

Process

As both researcher and illustrator, I feel that process is too broader term. The act of exploration is something that crosses all four of our practices. We do not find out site, whether physical, theoretical, or digital without exploration. It is only with instinct that the act of exploration can occur.

Walking for myself is the first act, then looking and listening to the best of my ability. Caitlin flips this over though with her pre-planning being part of her exploration, then she experiences the site.

The process of 'collecting data' (I put that in inverted commas as I feel there is a better term that I will one day find) holds risks and it is with these risks in mind that I am having to be creative and borrow from other industries methods of mark making and recording that provide evidence of life in these areas of land. Without these process' being borrowed and the function changed I can not ensure that I am not impacting the land I explore.Yimin takes a similar role but her tool is her, and her imagination. My imagination is there to re-define my tools or process'.

(Yimin)
Process

'Doing' is to breathe with the process.

In our conversation around the illustration process, the four of us kept going back to the concept of 'Thinking through making '.

As I used to be a results-oriented creator, I find the approach of making and exploring the process is liberating for me. Although it is not the only methodology in artistic creation.  Because I no longer need to face the outcomes between good and bad results only and use it as a standard for criticising my work.

Instead, I allow myself to be in a situation of ambiguity. As Nietsche's argument about unknowing, it is more like a state of thought and life.1 I want to accept the possibility of being inspired, changed, and even failed in the unknown process. And these elements are all important sparks of creativity, not repetition.

For El and Caitlin, what they are trying to do is to make the process itself perceivable. The unknown exploration and unexpected outcome are in itself the purpose. Being in the site creates sensory materials and then the feeling also becomes part of raw materials. And Yuzhen's work sees the investigation as the essence of her project, or even to say the ultimate goal means to open the door of the process, which is more intimate, personal, real storytellings that come from individuals.

1. Rachel Jones, On the Value of Not Knowing: Wonder, Beginning Again and Letting Be ( London: Black Dog Publishing, 2013).

(Caitlin)
process + reflection

My thinking and doing in the landscape has a direct translation into my doing in the studio. This becomes cyclical process of revisiting which allows my research to continually deepen.

Reflection is therefore a method which underpins and is bound within my entire process as an illustration research practitioner. Whether that be when; I’m out on location reading landscapes through an emotive human lens, writing on site or when I’m in the studio extracting landscapes from archival footage.

It is the ongoing reflection which enables me to enrich my research - carrying it between environments and through different materials and mediums. It also determines the visual language of my practice. By drawing upon my reflective writing and observations made on site, it impacts how I approach materials - often using them to visually and practically work through ideas and drive my investigation further. Process and reflection therefore go hand in hand as it is what I do with a material which transforms it into an illustrative or communicative device.

(Yuzhen)
Process+reflection

Similar to Caitlin’s discussion of the paralleling process and reflection. In my practice, I think through illustrating, and these reflections help to adjust and improve the illustration strategies later on.

To further expand with my project Homes in Mobility, as discussed before, to offer alternative illustration interpretation on migration, I started by semi-structured interviews to acquire personal experiences of homes in migration. Then I would code for themes which emerged from the transcripts and illustrate them. During this process, reflective practice as suggested by Donald Schön (Gray and Malins, 2004) and Stephanie Black (2014) is adopted to analyse the decisions I made. The coding and illustrating process are the “reflection-in-action”, and the reflections afterwards are the “reflection-on-action”.

Fig 1. Graph of the methods

Here I have some of the images I made.

Fig 2 and 3. sketches in thinking-through making process

During the thinking-through-illustrating process, I reflected on why I started with the theme of the airport rather than others - it is due to my own conflicted impressions towards the airport. I recalled how I once took 18 flights in one year and how the airport made me anxious. This experience is personal - some of the other interviewees did not feel the same way. This finding demands for a reflexive method that examine my positions in illustrating. Accordingly, autoethnography is added during the reflective practice, also a further step of forwarding the illustration back to the interviewees is applied. Interviews, reflections, illustrations and autoethnography all structured in a dialogic process as below.

Fig 4. Graph of the adjusted methodology

Fig 5. Example of an illustration I bring back to the interviewees, the text on the right is a selection of my autoethnography writing.

This example shows how the illustrating process and reflections shape each other in an evolving dialogue, and this interactive dialogue is transferable in my other projects.

(Yimin)
reflection

Earlier I discussed the connection between intuition and reflection. And a reflexive approach does not stop at this step, it directly points to practice and action.

The concept 'reflective practice' is derived from Donald Schön(1983). He emphasized the bridging function of reflection to research and practice.
It is in this iterative process that we think about what we are doing and reshaping action while we are doing it2

This allows me to quickly respond to intuition and reflect on the purpose of my actions and makes creating a cyclic process. For my work, in particular, I usually reflect on mundane objects and urban structures that appear around me and add a layer of imagination to them to make them out of the familiar range. Connecting the urban elements to the subtle human experience, makes them rediscovered. and rediscovery means rethinking. We think about the things we invent as we think about ourselves.

At first, I didn't know the intention of action. As the rapid actions and reflections accumulated more and more, I was able to analyze the commonality from them and gradually build my practice systematically.

2. Carole Gray and Julian Malins, Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design, ( Ashgate Publishing, 2004).

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'BEING'

How does your location/intention/position inform your  Illustration research?

(Insert image)

Location

(Caitlin)

My practice led research exists somewhere between site and studio. As I am dealing with our human relationship to landscapes, I work primarily with industrially scarred or healing spaces such as quarries - considering them as meeting places between humans and nature.

It is therefore important for me as the illustrator to oscillate across different environments; engaging closely with my subject matter from different vantage points. For example I begin research in the studio before carrying into research on site.

By working with initially with a range of materials such as films, archival documentaries and texts; I can study how landscapes are represented or cast as metaphorical vehicles in literature. By identifying them as sites in which to observe, interrogate and reconfigure in the studio - I am able to enact this when in a physical location.

(Yimin)
My intentions do not direct me to a specific location. It is my reflexive reaction to a location that generates my intention. And then it guides me to explore that position and refresh my perspective.

We all have our physical location. But nowadays based on the change in our ways of seeing, an immersive watching experience has the ability to invite us into the world it offers. Our minds can easily shuffle between different places and get exciting experiences. Being an invitee under these conditions, we are a traveller or simply a ghost floating above another world. The experience is provided and predicted.

We gradually detached from our location. And the detachment seems to be a way of enduring reality.

So my work intends to get people to reconnect with their surroundings.  Gazing and criticising at the most mundane of urban landscapes in a way that is both visual and interactive.

(Eleanor)

Caitlin talks about the physical location and Yimin the theoretical, I find myself somewhere in-between; concentrating on the hidden.  Taking both these approaches to location in mind I can see multiple appearing. Caitlin's locations live in the physical and the archival, highlighting what was and why was. Yimin uses the mind as a key component to her location, suggesting the location as an untouchable space that only those who enter it can experience, meaning the location is never the same.

My practice has taken the role of the observer, it does not matter to me what has happened or what my viewers think of the location but more what the location can say for itself. What can it offer me and the viewer to invite us in but as a temporary viewer.

The location has to have an element of inaccessibility in order for it to provide a hidden narrative. Searching for the location is a physical act of the practitioner but not the viewer. I am privy to its story and will keep the secret. The location itself has three elements, the hidden, the search and the find. All of these have equal value. The searching for the site has its own narrative that is often but not always highlighted in the work. There is no particular way to plan this other than movement and looking. By moving and circling various areas I start to understand the land, when a natural barrier is arrived at then I use that as an invitation.

The location is more than just site, it is process and unknown and both are equally important to the work as the other.

(Yuzhen)
Illustration is a highly contextual practice, and its encountering can happen at anytime and anywhere from the act of doing, presenting to viewing.

Therefore, the location in illustration can imply the physical space wherein the practice is being acted, or the cyber community where the images are circulated, as discussed by Caitlin and Yimin. Additionally, the subject of location does not only speak to the illustrator or viewer, the location itself with things therein also have agency, as pointed out by Eleanor. The fluidity and ongoingness of illustration hence determine the nature of its location.

My illustration practice is more or less rooted in a certain culture and situated on the in-between passage of becomings. For example, in my practice-led project Homes in Mobility, the location plays a crucial part as it questions my being and inquires the interrogation of the practice. It starts with me and my interviewees being Chinese migrants in the UK, I argued that the cultural binary opposition of the East and West has been diluted in a world of mobility. The cultural differences are becoming increasingly ambiguous and fragmented, yet not fully homogenised. Standing on this blurring middle ground, me and my peers from the Chinese diasporas find it difficult to locate ourselves both physically and spiritually. This initial in-between location of culture, identity and of course geographical space triggered my intention to illustrate intuitively.

Intention

(Caitlin)

Unlike many site specific practices, I try to approach being on site with as little agenda or clear intention as possible. I do not navigate spaces with an objective mindset. I am not there to document, collect data or find anything specific. For me, it is about being present and perceptive on site - absorbing, witnessing and drawing connections with my observations made in the studio (where possible). From the visibly scarred to the seemingly untouched landscape, such locations allow me to understand our relationship with landscapes through time - telling stories from with and through landscapes.

(Eleanor)

My intention as a visitor to the land is unknown, however I do approach it with a series of rules for practice that I apply to all site visits.

- The collaborators must never meet.
- What is collected must never be manipulated unless stipulated by the illustrator.
- The work is a collaboration with the land, not a response to the land.
- The method must not leave a mark on the land.
- Analysing the collected material and recombine it happens in the studio.
- The process never ends and can be adapted across multiple sites.
- Experience of the site must be a solo activity.
- The audience must not visit the site.
- Nothing is too small or insignificant.

These rules are vital to my intention towards the land and its inhabitants. I am intending to merely be an observer and researcher, and if I am impacting the site then I am not understanding the true narrative within. Like Caitlin I approach the land with little intention other than to listen and observe, however my intended time tends to be short, the longer I am there the more I am impacting on the land. This means that rather than long extended periods I must adapt and make multiple visits over long periods of time. This allows me to look for signs of change naturally taking place. The intention in my practice is to highlight what happens when we are not there, I therefore must also follow this rule and spend as little time in the location as possible. In order for me to collect my data and record my evidence which will offer an accurate and true portrayal of the land I intend allow myself to visit the site sometimes multiple times a day over a period of weeks and then let it rest for a few months before returning.

（Yimin)
What Eleanor and Catlin are doing is giving their subject matter the utmost respect and patience, working with them and going back and forth to create dialogue and communication. The difference is that my intention is to use imagination and intervention to conceptually destroy the subject of my observation.

When the pandemic almost shut down and emptied the city. I began to reimagine the uses of structural public facilities and make "manuals" for them as though they are failed to the city.

When we were facing the ruins that human beings left behind, I put myself in the position of an alien, introducing human inventions in absurd ways.

It begins with naive ideas: I declare bank counters are used for people to shake hands, all street lights are birthday candles, the city's instruction signs are a constant reminder for us to leave this man-made illusion.... during the process, I gradually separated from my location, became an alien to the space that I familiar.

In this way, through critical intentions, I build a connection to an environment that I would normally ignore on a daily basis. On the one hand, I am a fictional outsider, but on the other hand, this new form of relationship is far more intimate than being in it and ignoring it.

My intention makes me consciously exist in the position. It offers me new materials, makes me curious, excites me, and sometimes confuses me, but it makes me act.

(Yuzhen)
Compared with Caitlin and Eleanor’s intentions that are almost unspeculative and spontaneous, despite my intention of the project is intuitively triggered by my premise in the in-between area, the aim is clear and specific - to offer an alternative illustration interpretations which capture the ambiguity and fluidity of migration experience. In other words, my project is initiated by the need to illustrate.

During the process, as the illustration unfolds, the intention evolves accordingly and in turns shapes the practice. For example, in the project Homes in Mobility, after I illustrated the first interviewee’s transcript and reflected, I realised how my experiences of migration stopped me from seeing and illustrating, which requires a method to further interrogate why something is taken for granted.On that account the intention changes from merely offering an illustration interpretation to further applying illustration as a reflexive methodology.

In a word, my intention invariably changes to cater for each project, however, what stays the same is that the research is initiated by the intention to illustrate, and in turns the illustration process sculpts the intention.

Position

(Caitlin)

Within my role as an illustrator, I adopt different roles when exploring a site which bring a series of investigative actions or lenses for me to look through. These roles typically include : observer, reader, investigator, witness, storyteller. Stepping into these roles both in and out of the studio help me to navigate myself primarily through what I can see, feel and imagine.

Simple actions such as sitting, walking and reflecting within the landscape allows me to take different positions within my writing. Whether that be writing from the position of a human, a narrator or from the perspective of the landscape itself.

By personifying the landscape, it collapses the space between - bringing it closer to our human understanding, experience and consciousness. Each position therefore allows me to witness the site through different lenses as I contemplate the human traces left in the landscape. As an illustration researcher, I consider myself as a witness on site as I generate and gather evidence from reading into what remains. The material and documentation of being on site therefore exists as visual descriptions and metaphors.

(Eleanor)

Although using similar methods to Caitlin I am using my practice to widen that space between the land, the researcher and the viewer. I am a witness to the land and its narrative but in order to be just that I have to distance myself from the land at the same time as learning to understand what it has to say. This is a balance that as a practitioner I am still investigating, using methods of data recording I have to study the land closely whilst also being aware that I am an uninvited visitor.

The land and its residents are my unconscious and unconcenting collaborators. I see myself sometimes as a voice for the land, inviting humans to not look at the land. The land offers me animal footprints, insect sounds, photographic data and rubbings as a way of saying we are here, it is my responsibility to then keep the location hidden and secret.

My position then becomes a representative to the land, I have to be diplomatic in my approach to recording the site, I am an outsider and it is something that I have to remind myself throughout my research. The position I take back in the studio becomes more invasive as I have the material to examine closely. This is where the importance of the chosen process' become apparent.

(Yimin)
A position can be a place, a context, a situation, a story, even a period of time. No matter what the specific position, the illustrator's responsibility is not just to create a beautiful layer of skin but a combination of multiple roles.

Even when we describe our feelings, our words could be incomprehensible to other people. The accurate and subtle feelings an image can deliver must ask the illustrator to have a rigour making process. She/he needs to be a researcher to investigate, to be an editor, a translator to interact with materials.

This time I landed in a physical location. An urban space trapped in mediocrity and easily abandoned in times of emergency. As a witness to this process, I endowed myself with the role of a bystander, an explorer, and even a destroyer. Besides, I played as a fiction curator and held " A Great Exhibition" to showcase collected human inventions.

Being a practitioner, I prefer to expand and even challenge my roles as I explore ways to deliver information. Sometimes I'm a carrier of information and sometimes I want to be a bridge. The changing of different roles help me to be positioned.

(Yuzhen)

Position is the roles held in illustration encounters; it is almost inseparable from location and intention. For example, Caitlin and Eleanor’s position is closely related to the site, and Yimin broaden it beyond geographical location.

On reflecting my projects, I realized most of them start by questioning who I am and what position I am taking. Before being an illustrator, I might be a student, a migrant, a Chinese, and all these roles informed my illustration practice. As discussed above, the project Homes in Mobility is initiated in the need for an alternative illustration interpretation on migration. From this beginning point, with the ongoing illustration process, my position keeps changing between an illustrator, a researcher and a migrant. Also, as a result of my premise in the non-binary area, I identified how my experiences of migration is inseparable from participants’ experiences, which requires an adjustment on methodology to integrate reflexivity that takes into account my positions.

My illustration practice always starts with an intention that explores the being of people, culture and community, and during the action of illustrating, my own being becomes an important part that requires interrogation.

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being

conducting site research
engaging closely with subject matter
oscillating between studio/site
being autonomous

doing

adopting/using methods from other field - translating through visual practice
process / material / action / enquiry

showing

form / environment / valid form of knowledge

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As we explore the contemporary position of the illustrator within a research context, let us begin with a framework of reference - reflecting upon where the discipline originated, its function and how this has informed how the discipline is widely practiced.

By acknowledging the illustrator's historical proximity to research, we will explore their progression; from accompanying the research(er) through pictorial documentation, to stepping into the role of researcher themselves..

It is through delving into real world subject matters, that illustration is able to infiltrate scholarly inquiries; bringing it to non-specialist and interdisciplinary audiences (Gannon & Fauchon, 2021). In order to examine the porous role of the illustrator, this paper will unpack and examine the importance of methodology; as acts of being, doing and showing. It is the reciprocal relationship between thinking, doing and making which gives agency to illustration; reframing it as a creative vehicle in which to analyse, pose question or spark debate.

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Being

(quickly define being)

Being can be both physically and philosophically. Being somewhere and someone for somewhat reasons, and it is the happenings of ongoingness.

(What is being in illustration?)

Compared with fine art, as widely quoted, Art for art’s sake, illustration is a highly contextual means of visual communication. “what” (subject) and “how” (medium) of an image are not the defining factors - “why”(purpose) determines whether a work of art is illustration or not.(ref, the history of illustration)

Before illustrating, you might have occupied different roles socially and organically. For example, you are the researcher, journalist, and the observer of the nature. These will affect the agency of how you approach illustration with your own conscious or intuitive purposes. During the process of illustrating, you take up space and time, wherein the roles you’ve taken keep changing. Following the changes of decisions you make while illustrating. Afterwards, your work might be exhibited and circulated in a gallery or cyberspace, this is the being of presence but also decided by the being that happens before and after illustrating process.

Therefore, BEING is ongoing and contextual, it is crucial in illustration practice as it serves for not only ”what” and “how”, but more importantly, “why”.

(Why Being is important in g illustration process?)

All my practice is initiated by the questioning of who am I, what roles I’m taking. For example, in the research project…..

Here will discuss being my work samples.

Doing

Being and doing are interlaced in my illustration practice

I started by investing my roles, then I …..

here will be analysis of my work examples

Showing

Showing is not only the presentation of illustrations, it is the whole experience of illustration encountering. It happens in and after my illustration practice, not restricted by physical space.

This paragraph will introduce how I create illustration encounters.

Before - context will affect how illustration communicates

during - how I use illustration as interviewing protocols, and how I use is as part of the methodology

after - how I organize them considering accessibility, another process of reflections

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After contact with the world, we watch, record, transform information and deliver it to others.  This might be a feature of human beings.
The picture shows the world's oldest drawing in South Africa, from the traceable records, which might be the first time humans started to draw.
Until this day, when we see this piece first time, we must still wonder, what was this human trying to depict? At this moment, we build a connection with people from 73,000 years ago.
We don't just look at pictures, we read them.
Moreover, we receive feelings from them. In biblical illustrations, we even derive divinity from it. So it's hard to say that the illustrator is only responsible for making a layer of decorative skin.

Even when we describe our feelings, our words are incomprehensible to other people. The accurate and subtle feelings a picture can deliver must ask the illustrator to have a rigour making process. She/he needs to be a researcher to investigate, and being an editor, a translator to engage with materials.

To be an illustrator in a more traditional sense, the result of the process goes towards the production of image-making.

But now we are being in a world of watching. Changes in the mechanism of image production have changed the ways of seeing. Images are probably one of the least scarce resources of the 21st century. And many times they appear as an immersive invitation that leads the viewer into a space created by them. They still have the function to stimulate our senses, but this is not a good time to mention our feelings.

The contemporary context of the illustration, I think it can be understood from the simplest sense of the word. An illustrator is a person who illustrates a condition to others. We borrow what we know about the medium, whether it's visual, sound, or even smell, narrating to the audience about the environment we provide.

Besides, it gradually presents a decentralized feature. We put our eyes on the corner. We hear stories from individuals. And we awaken our feelings with the audience.

Take the narrative back from a world of viewing. The action and the requirements of an illustrator's role coincide with our predecessors. But this time, it's up to us to decide whose story to tell.

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BEING:
The intention of the illustrator is matched with the position of an illustrator. Before entering a site we have to position ourselves in our intended role. Through my practice I am the observer / researcher. I am not part of the community however I am understanding of the community. The work is not controlled by me but my site. Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle state that the definition of the field in ‘In the Field, The Art of Field Recording’ (2013) is as important as the field itself.

The use of instinct and rigour is therefore an essential combination when entering an area of visual research within the field. This can be seen in my first site visit in 2019 in South Wales. My instinct for moving off the path led me to a small area just outside of a power plant and using tools such as a compass on my car steering wheel and my dogs nose I was able to be led to areas of of dense animal habitats. The process of exploring drawing as research in this way meant that I had to strip back my experience of the site and spend time with my process. Collecting animal footprints and sound recordings of bats and moths was where I began to see the world of research and illustration colliding. David Lemm described maps as a form of abstract tools with which we use to navigate the globe (medium.com 2015), highlighting the ethical position we undertake as visual researchers researchers. Historically maps were tailored by cartographers to highlight areas that were wished to be seen and miss out those that were shameful to the state. These maps are still referenced today as evidence and data of city development. This intern is highlighting the ethical role of the illustrator not to influence when using their practice for research.

Artist such as Tim Knowles uses his balloon drawings to provide us not only with aesthetically pleasing visual research but also an insight into weather and land. The data produced cannot be debated or denied and this is what makes it research as well as artwork and illustration. By allowing the globe to map its own work illustrator researchers can provide a honest and pure account of what is there in front of us.

By producing work that is providing vital information to a wider audience I am creating a practice and has an over arching output of research and information. By re-visiting the site and the materials I am highlighting a narrative that is true and spoken by the land itself.

Just like David Lemm's approach to The Bothy Residency, I allow myself one starting point (the land) and the rest rely on instinct and what the land can provide me with.

DOING:
We begin to see a sway in the role of the illustrator with 'From Illustration of Evidence: A conversation with Michael Aird', the illustration is becoming undeniable fact. The availability of platforms such as googlemaps is now allowing the illustrator to peak silently into other worlds that we would not have had access too.

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where has the role of illustrator and researcher combined? and why has the role merged. How do you do it

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where has the role of illustrator and researcher combined? and why has the role merged. How do you do it

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illustrator and research > illustration researcher

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illustrator and research > illustration researcher

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- The practice based research presented at the conference is the real strength here and this is where the authors can ‘show’ how research functions in and through practice.

- The strength of this submission is as an example of research through practice.

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- The ideas manifest in the practice are not articulated in the writing

- This article reads like a set of working notes towards something, rather than a resolved set of ideas.

- An initial 1500 word (or shorter) that functions as an introduction and literature review and ensures your ideas come form a position of informed knowledge.

- a few lines of enquiry that could be focused on more closely, for example; intuition as a research methodology, or the notion of rigour within illustration practices- these ideas will need to be discussed more analytically in relation to existing literature and knowledge. This will help establish a more robust theoretical framework and to support your arguments.

- We would like to place more emphasis on this by showing the work - perhaps presenting as shown on the padlet; a selection of captioned images that ‘illustrate’ your practice based research methods.

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The Importance of Not Being Present, Volume 2. Pen-Y-Creigiau

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When Caitlin, Yuzhen, Yimin and Eleanor bring their work together, you start to understand the parallels that have been developed between them whilst studying. They do not all share the same process or intentions by any means, but there are key overlaps within their approaches.
Caitlin and Eleanor for example, tend to work in reverse of each other, both seeing themselves as observers however Caitlin, with the added position of witness. Like Eleanor, Yimin chooses to separate herself from her site. Viewing and removing the function away from the object before providing it with a new one - perhaps playing the role that the resident wild life play in Eleanor's practice. Yuzhen and Caitlin both reference the idea of 'gaps' or the 'spaces in-between'.

Providing the viewer with an insight into the mind set of a Illustration Researcher, the process of rigour and re-visiting manifests itself in all four practitioners. This highlights the aims of collecting and researching for as Yuzhen puts it 'knew knowledge' or an alternative way of looking or seeing. Yimin references 'thinking through making', which is an approach adopted by the group collectively, however a difference presents itself in the 'Showing'. Eleanor and Caitlin still aim to bring participants into the process, whereas Yimin and Yuzhen consider their process as a method for themselves to further push their practice into a presentable form. This does not necessarily mean one image or even a representation of an image, it is more that the process comes from the studio and the mind. All four practitioners although addressing different themes, have developed human connections with their site due to their close study and sensory exploration of space- both physically and metaphorically.

These four diverse approaches to the practice of illustration do not aim to redefine the discipline, but instead present an alternative future for it - one which places the illustrator as a deployable skillset, who can meaningfully approach and respond to a broad spectrum of subject matter.

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The first scene that comes to my mind when I think about 'showing' is a kid holding her/his first drawing masterpiece towards other people. The creator itself is responsible for spreading the whole picture and stand behind it. For me, this seems like a perfect definition to explain the word 'showing'.

The next that comes to mind is about art galleries, cinemas and theaters. As an audience, we see different squares/screens/stages suspended in our most comfortable viewing position. To be an audience means to be served. At the same time, the figure of the creator was hidden. Along with the situation, the process may also disappear.

I quite like the word "illustration" and "illustrator" is because of the sense of duration in them. "Illustrate" is a verb, which means there might be a narrator in it for explaining things to others. So narrative itself is a process, and like storytelling, we can't tell the whole story just by watching the end. Although illustration in the mainstream's cognition is inclined to picture display mode. For the contemporary illustration practice, I think the introduction of the process might bring a sense of authorship and a perspective of experience.

We always see 'experience' in a variety of contexts.
"Enhance the user experience."
"For the audience experience."
As a traveller, we can go to different places to gain our memories. Different from a grand narrative, the illustrator, as the translator and narrator of information, is also responsible for collecting, digesting, somehow displaying materials. The creator is directly the provider of its memories. To be an audience under this situation, the interesting challenge is, can we piece together an experience of our own from one's memories and emotions?

With Catlin and El's work, we can see this quality as they're trying to translate a kind of inquisitive experience and vague emotion into recognizable materials. When we face our feelings, they are always too trivial and too abstract to be sorted out. They treat them seriously as materials and blend them with their subject matter. The feeling of looking at their works is complicated as they are unpredictable. On the one hand, we see the relationship with the environment and reflect on the aggressiveness of human beings in the floating of emotions. On the other hand, we use nature and environment as a medium to peer into subtle emotions that are not directly represented by vocabularies, but by emotions.

And what I like about Yuzhen's work is that she takes images as a trigger. Most of the time we tend to use visual representations as the end of the result, but with Yuzhen's work and the attraction of images, we can start to get close to personal storytelling, then begin to understand a community, to listen to the stories that are less told.

For me, I like to test normal elements in life about their narrative quality. This may relate to my graphic design background, I think narrative does not need a specific carrier or format. A flyer, a business card, a package also might be carrying information and intend to tell a story.  So I did a series of manuals and advertisements in A Great Exhibition and a self-zoom meeting as the statement of my practice. Exploring the boundaries of narrative methods is a topic for me.

From my personal point of view, 'showing' means to try to communicate, or to speak, or to touch, or to be seen.

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‘Being, Doing, Showing’ is an article comprising four collective voices; Eleanor Wemyss, Caitlin Kiely, Yuzhen Cai and Yimin Qiao as they explore their innovative, experimental and speculative approaches to illustration research. With the field of illustration becoming increasingly broad and porous, these practitioners will engage in a dialogue about what it means to do research in, with and through practice. They will unpack their methodologies, suggesting how it is used to trigger conversation, deepen thoughts and bring focus to the overlooked details and in between spaces.

What brings these voices together is how they practice illustration. Collectively, they consider it a process of critical thinking, through reflection and investigative making. As they position themselves somewhere in between the roles of; witness, observer, narrator, translator and visualiser, throughout this article they will explain how these different lenses help them to gather material and engage closely with their subject matter.

The text is presented in three parts; Illustration as 1.‘Being’, 2.‘Doing’ and 3.‘Showing’. Rather than presenting four singular practices, the article will instead draw upon the inherent links between. By placing methodology at the centre of the discussion, it allows each person to articulate their practice in relation to their many acts of ‘doing’. Underneath each subheading, is a list of key words and methods associated with their collective ways of working. Each practitioner will respond to these prompt words, showing how we might take the same method or tool, but utilise and explore it with different intentions.

The format of the text reflects that of a Padlet page. This is reflective of their collective experience of postgraduate education, which was held mainly online during the pandemic. The online space provided a meeting place between four different practices, which allowed them to dissect their methodological approaches to the practice of illustration. In pulling their practices apart and observing them in closer detail, the practitioners have started to identify strong links between them.

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Having formed such a close bond to my sites I sometimes struggle to realise that the audience has not. The process of collecting and documenting is intrinsic to how I will then present the work, however the struggle comes when I need to work out a way of presenting all the elements in a way that highlights how special the landscape is without inviting the audience to go and see it.

In 'Beneath Our Feet' I ended up presenting my studio, my studio is my archive and my mind. The work is grouped and hung along the wall with various references into the research of finding out what the footprints come from. Sound has also become really important here as it encourages the audience to stay with the work. What my intension is, is to provide a moment of solitude, the sound of the insects, wind, rain and even power plant chimney focus' the mind, a small image or print brings the viewer in close, allowing them to pick apart what they are looking at, spotting little details with every minute that passes.

I am not the author of the work, the landscape is, I am merely the carrier of information. I collect what has been presented to me and forward it on to a wider audience. In some sites my practice has taken on the role of protector, I am asking that the audience does not go looking and instead trusts what they are being presented with.

They are experiencing my mind set in the act of doing, the only thing missing is how it feels to be there on your skin. By presenting the Pen-Y-Craigieu work in a small book form, I am inviting the audience to take a small honest documentation of the land home with them. It is a record of its ever changing physicality, its' mission to heal itself over the last century becoming apparent with every book printed. The audience is not a viewer, or even really an audience, they are a participant. By investing in the idea that they shouldn't always go looking they are participating in an act that will provide havens for wild life to adapt to our ever changing climate. I do not want them to form an opinion but rather to absorb in the imagery that the quarry has presented to us and create their own conversation between themselves and the work.

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If being somewhere is about making connections, then the way we act determines our relationship to the position and to some extent, who we are. There are many ways of relating to people and communicating with them, so are people and materials, and the context in which they are situated.

Although four of us have different methods to engage with our material, in our panel discussion and communications, we keep going back to the concept of 'Thinking through making'  ' Taking the process as the outcome'. The idea leads to different art practices, but in essence, it is the core of our creative methodology.

For El and Caitlin, what they are trying to do is to make the process itself perceivable. The unknown exploration and unexpected outcome are in itself the purpose. Being in the site creates sensory materials and then the feeling also becomes part of raw materials. Not to mention that Yuzhen's work sees the investigation as the essence of her project, or even to say the ultimate goal means to open the door of the process, which is a more intimate, personal, real storytelling that comes from individuals.

Rather than directly practising this method, for me, what the concept has brought me is more like a paradigm shift. My past image-making process is to view the result as a point, and all my attention is focused on completing that perfect point as the sole purpose. During my first year MA experience, my personal tutor told me that if you see this as the destination, the best thing you can do is to be there and finish it. But if we don’t solidify the result first and let it form a state of flow, then where we can be, perhaps is somewhere beyond that spot.

Although now I think that both of these approaches have their benefits as they apply to different situations. But to realize that my job is not just all about making that point relieved my tense nerves and scattered them around the making process. It feels good to know there is no endpoint related to failure and success and get back to the state of relaxation to enjoy the fun of making.

In dealing with the process. What I prefer to do is to listen to my intuition first. I know taking creativity as a job is not just for fun. We need to be critical and take responsibility for the images we make.  In the experience of the education system and the long process of self-questioning. Instead, what I've learned is to trust my intuition, which sometimes can be more accurate than what we think.

Everyone's creative motivation is different. I hope to create interesting images or works that can make people have sensory feelings. So first of all, I have to acknowledge this feeling in my own perception. Because sometimes the feeling wears off in the process of making it, so it requires hundreds of confirmations from the creator. In the field of art, I don't want to make work that is just reasonable. During the process, I always allow myself to immerse in the environment first and generate emotions and feelings. There must be reasons behind the intuitive feelings, which may be environmental factors, historical factors, social and political factors.

There's a series of analytical methods and professional words that have been invented to evidence our abstract emotions that we don't have a name for. I do trust the sense of feeling and intuition. But I have to dig deep, try my best to express it, to sketch it, and do not want to let it just stay in the unspeakable, nameless state. ‘ Doing' is to breathe with the process.

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There are two parts of showing in this project.

One is after the first round of interviews, I brought some of the illustrations back to the interviewees and observed how they engaged with these images to further reflected on what stops me from seeing.

They other part of showing is the final practical outcome of this project. It was primarily designed to be merely images. However, during the dialogic process, I was aware of how illustrations and texts interact with each other to create meanings as new knowledge is produced. Therefore, I further curated materials online by purposely selected and arranged texts and images. I used this process as another round of reflective practice of reprocessing, reorganising and reviewing.

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Figure 2. Graph of the adjusted methodology, 2020, illustrated by the author

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Figure 1. Gray, C. and Malins, J, 2004, Paradigms of inquiry, in Visualizing Research: A Guideto the Research Process in Art and Design

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There has long been a discussion on what constitutes knowledge in art and design research. Gray and Malins (2004, p.20) proposed the new paradigm of art and design research with its own ontology, epistemology and methodology (see fig.1).

Stephanie Black (2019) discussed the possibility of positioning practice-led illustration research in the empty columns in figure 1:

Illustration, with its singular relationship with text (as extension, counterpoint or redirection as discussed by Braund 2011, for example), offers us the possibility of

contributing to a transitional stage between the columns of Figure 1, that is, from

qualitative research to performative paradigm.

(p. 232)

The performative paradigm is defined by Haseman where the practical works can contribute to knowledge (Haseman, 2007, cited in Black, 2014). Black (2019) pointed out the limit on Haseman’s idea as having separated the practical works from written texts. Unlike art being for art’s sake, the role of illustration is to communicate and illuminate an idea as discussed in the History of Illustration (Doyle, Grove and Sherman, 2019, p.35). There is this special image-text relationship in illustration. Therefore, Black (2019, pp.230-246) suggested incorporating images with texts in practice-led thesis to “illuminate new apprehensions”. To be mentioned, the texts and images in my project are not organised in such way, however, I applied it in the practical outcome, where images and texts interact with each other to create meanings as new knowledge is produced.

To further discuss what is illustration research, Black (2019) proposed illustration as research, which are research on, in and for illustration. They were built on Christopher

Frayling’s essays in 1993, which are research for, into and through practice (Frayling, 1993, p.5, cited in Black, 2014). The followings are the meanings of research on, in and for

illustration discussed by Black (2014):

research on illustration:

• Analysis of the finished illustrations;

research in illustration:

• Research is initiated and unfolded in illustration;

• the questions and challenges are informed by the need of illustrating;

• Illustration drives the methodology or the specific method;

research for illustration:

• Black didn’t investigate this part and pointed out it fails to meet the requirement of

academic research which requires new knowledge.

In this project, research in illustration is employed to investigate the process of practice. The research is initiated in my needs of illustrating migrants’ perceptions of homes, and the challenges of reflexivity are identified through illustrating process. The methodology is informed and carried out through illustration.

Therefore, the methodology of this project is derived from my own mixed methods to serve for illustrating purpose. Illustration is both the visual outcome and the method. To acquire personal narratives on homes and migration, semi-structured interview is introduced. During the illustrating process, reflective practice as suggested by Donald Schön (Gray and Malins, 2004) and Black (2014) is adopted to analyse the decisions I made. In this process, I identified the challenges of the etic and emic of my position - it is almost impossible to separate my own experiences of being a migrant from the interviewees’, especially with the

emphasis on the non-binary area. It sometimes stopped me from seeing and affected the efficiency of how illustration communicates. Driven by this need, I further developed an iterative dialogic process for reflexivity （see fig 2）.

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On reflecting my projects, I realized most of them start by questioning who I am and what position I am taking. Before being an illustrator, I might be a student, a migrant, a Chinese, and all these roles informed my illustration practice which is more or less rooted in a certain culture and situated on the in-between passage of becomings.

The project Homes in Mobility is initiated by my cultural position as non-binary. I argued that the cultural binary opposition of the East and West has been diluted in a world of mobility. Being a Chinese migrant, compared with Chinese migrants who sailed to the UK 100 years ago who saw and were seen in a strikingly exotic fashion, I surely experienced cultural differences and alienation, however, these glitches never come in a black or white

demarcation. The cultural differences are becoming increasingly ambiguous and fragmented, yet not fully homogenised. Standing on this blurring middle ground, me and my peers from the Chinese diasporas find it difficult to locate ourselves both physically and spiritually. It is a problematic yet typical experience, and not many illustrations capture experiences from this non-binary position. Therefore, this project is initiated in the need for an alternative illustration interpretation on migration.

From this beginning point, as the practice unfolded, my position keeps changing between an illustrator, a researcher and a migrant. Also, as a result of my premise in the non-binary area, I identified how my experiences of migration is inseparable from participants’ experiences, which requires an adjustment on methodology to integrate reflexivity that takes into account my positions.

My illustration practice always starts with an intention that explores the being of people, culture and community, and during the action of illustrating, my own being becomes an important part that requires interrogation.

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Time varies from site to site. For this I have to use my instincts, my instincts only click in after several visits to this area. The act of sitting, listening and watching is essential before the process can begin. I need to understand the workings of the area I am observing. This act of sitting also allows me to become less of a threat to the animal life that call this home. The weather has an impact on my duration of time spent there, it is not easy to explore a landscape without impacting on it, therefore I collaborate with the wind to uncover what lies beneath the land. The rain helps to wash away temporary debris bringing the more permanent scars to the front and highlighting areas of growth and non-growth.

Sometimes the time I spend is little more than ten to twenty minutes. If the area is densely populated with active wildlife I do not want to disturb their routines, merely arriving to collect animal tracks and refresh the tunnels and leaving as quick as possible. I find myself fighting my instinct to watch. As illustrators we are trained to watch, observe and respond. All three of these actions must be ignored. I am to trust marks left by my unknowing collaborators, my position is temporary where as theirs in permanent. I offer payment in seeds and meal worms but it is their choice whether to interact with them or not, leaving their signatures on the paper in which the payment lies, it feels like a transaction. I do not expect to benefit from the land unless the land is benefiting from me.

Often my practice feels like a conversation with my site. If the land wants to show itself it will and if not it won't. During summer months when the grass is over-grown and the infant animals have fledged, the land is left open and vulnerable, however during the winter months there are more hiding spots. It is hard not to search them out, especially when you have formed a bond with the land. There are ways to spot these areas of activity and learn to keep a distance, using tools like binoculars or camera zooms so as not to disturb who lives there. It is my aim not to intervene in the narrative of the landscape but merely to observe and record a bit like a forensic exam.

My practice uses a set of 'Rules for Practice' that ensure my research remains ethical throughout.

- The collaborators must never meet.
- What is recorded must never change in size colour or pitch unless otherwise stated.
- The work is a collaboration / observation NOT a response.
- The method must not leave a mark on the land.
- The collaboration must not impact the collaborator or their surrounding habitat.
- The work must be accessible for all who wish to experience it.
- The process never ends.
- Experience of the work must be a solo activity.
- Nothing is too small or insignificant.
- The audience must not visit the site, this work is proof of 'The importance of not being present.'.

Reflecting on material collected happens back in the studio. The act of printing, drawing and examining highlights a narrative that I often do not see when on site. It allows me to go back to the land with a more targeted mind. Why is that vegetation not settling in this area? Why are there holes in that rock and not the rest. Once back on site I can examine the impact of the wind, rain, sun and frost to help me understand growth patterns. So far with my current site I have been back only seven times, however with the Milford Haven site I visited three to four times a day for six to seven weeks. When doing this the landscape you are exploring becomes smaller and smaller as you start to notice the tiny details in the land. By the end this vast site had become two meters squared. I only saw that site in one season. With the quarry I visit every three months and will continue to do so for many years to come. The act of collecting imagery, prints and thoughts will become the quarry's own personal archive. The act of field work is no longer about the landscape, it has become a conversation with what is happening within the land, it is something that I can not control or understand and therefore it creates a gripping narrative that I know will never end.

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Yuzhen's work is located in the betweenness of different places, and people themselves become the carrier of all places. Among human stories and feelings are confirmed by the community in the process of sharing and listening, in the place of floating, stand and watch where they are.

The position of Caitlin and Eleanor is to explore another place. Although the direction of this exploration may be different, I always feel that in this process of discovery and recording,  they are getting closer to elements that are more in tune with their own life.

Being somewhere provides us with raw materials. We decide to stop, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of confusion. ‘Being‘ is a decision to recognize its connection with ourself.

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I explore landscapes, not only physically through site visits, but through their representation in film, literature and archival documentaries. Just as pathetic fallacy attributes human feelings and responses to inanimate things in literature, I’m interested in treating ‘place’ as a dynamic, living, breathing figure.

My thinking and doing in the landscape has a direct translation into my doing in the studio. As I oscillate between fieldwork and studio practice, my observations and writing on location directly informs how I approach material in the studio. For example, I started to read films as though they were a piece of literature or a physical site themselves - deconstructing, pulling them apart and forensically looking - paying particular attention to the presence, yet silence of the landscape. I became fascinated by how such an intrinsic component of storytelling was always reduced to a muted backdrop. Could the landscape not be both setting and subject of the narrative?.

With this in mind, I started editing and re-telling sequences by removing the human figure, so I could get closer to the landscape itself. The remaining sequence was told only through the unfolding destruction of the landscape, at the hands of the absent human. I became interested in where we, as humans, positioned ourselves in relation to this destruction?. Could we empathise with the landscape when the space between was taken away?.

I continued to explore the liminal space between the human and the land, beyond the studio as I went back out on location, responding to sites through this narrative lens as I continued digging for material for my narrative. By carrying my thinking and making between site and studio, my research is continually exposed to different conditions so remains actively responsive.

As the writing derives directly from being with the landscape, the narrative is told through actions such as walking and sitting, whilst also using varying scale and proximity to create a sense of intimacy within a wide open space. By working in this way, it allows me to explore the spatial potential of narratives as my writing is intended to be performed or experienced in space and not just consumed from the printed page.

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We all have our position, physically. But what can count as 'Being'? We can be somewhere else When we walk on the road but think about other stuff. Not to mention with screens and other formats of storytelling, our minds can easily shuffle between different places and get experiences that have no relation with our location. Invitations are everywhere.

In most cases, as an invitee, we are a traveller or simply a ghost floating above another world.  Our connection to the place is up to us.  We always feel free to leave as transient visitors. But at the same time, all we experience is provided, or predicted. From being a receiver to a narrator, choosing a position to make connections may be a starting point to observe, to perceive.

A position, which can be a place, a context, a situation, a story, even a period of time. Sometimes without looking and picking, in the process of our growth and life, we have been surrounded by it. We are part of it, and as witnesses, our record of it makes us observers. This process lifts us off the ground and occasionally allows us to observe our environment.  Take ourselves as the sample and research method.

Most of my works come from this methodology. Through the large social context and daily observation, I use my work to think backwards about the relationship between people and between people and space.

One of my works is called 'A Great Exhibition'. It is a fictional exhibition curated by me and all exhibits are human inventions that I collected during the pandemic to rewrite their use and meaning. Being in this position means staring at the present and echoing the event ’ The Great Exhibition' that took place in Great Britain in 1851. Comparing two objects related exhibitions, observation and reflection take place simultaneously.

The sense of the absurd is reinforced during the pandemic when the abandoned city looks more like an empty stage. I used this as an opportunity to review the cityscape I thought I knew best. The place that I look around, from China to the UK, there doesn't seem to be much difference between big cities.

I thought, we were facing the ruins that human beings left behind? If an alien came to the earth at this time, it may think about it in the same way.  Will it build a museum about us? How does it explain human inventions to others? I began to reimagine the uses of structural public facilities and make "manuals" for them.

The process begins with some naive imagination: I declare bank counters are used for people to shake hands, all street lights are birthday candles, the city's instruction signs are a constant reminder for us to leave this man-made illusion.... from observation, I gradually separated from my environment, became an alien to the space that I familiar.

Both take public context and position as the theme. Instead, Yuzhen's work is located in the betweenness of different places, and people themselves become the carrier of all places. Among human stories and feelings are confirmed by the community in the process of sharing and listening, in the place of floating, stand and watch where they are.

The position of Caitlin and Eleanor is to explore another place. Although the direction of this exploration may be different, I always feel that in this process of discovery and recording,  they are getting closer to elements that are more in tune with their own life.

Being somewhere provides us with raw materials. We decide to stop, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of confusion. ‘Being‘ is a decision to recognize its connection with ourself.

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I spend a lot of my practice being still, listening, smelling and feeling. This is an experience I cannot work without. Due to the use of a hearing aid often my sounds are over shadowed by heavy winds but this is an advantage as it allows me to feel the immersive experience of my collaborators.

Using visual representation is intrinsic to my research, however the  process is more complex than this. My intention is to provide an insight into my experience but this cannot happen without rigorous research into the area. What is the most dominant part of this land? What lies underneath that? When researching the animal population around Milford Haven Power plant it became apparent that the sound of the chimneys burning out their fuel created a barrier that is not physical surrounding these pockets of land. The wildlife being ever the adapter had obviously learned to tune out this oppressive sound as it kept away us humans allowing them to create a habitat that is right for them.

The Quarry comes from a different perspective. It sits atop a hill in the depths of Wales, unmarked and unknown but to those few who have lived in a nearest village for generations. It is a small scar in the land, unable to heal due to its exposed face to the weather front. As the seasons grow milder I notice small pieces of vegetation clinging onto the rocks only to be either dried out by the sun or frozen out by the winter wind. The sound that is produced by the wind is not that different to the sound produced by the chimneys. However this is my perspective and therefore not relevant to my practice. Witnessing these extra details allows myself as a practitioner to experience a location to its fullest. With repeated visits I have learned what to search out in a way that I would not have done upon arrival.

The Act of Being for a lengthy period of time lifts a vale on the location, highlighting tiny pockets of life or even death. It heightens certain senses to see what is not normally seen. This is how I see my position in the world of Site and Field work. It is my role to notice.

The land provides the materiel, every action on that small pocket of rocks and vegetation provides a sign of something else. My practice witnesses these small signs without seeing the action of the resident. Small spiders webs appear in pockets of rocks and flint highlighting that this area is solid and secure. Vegetation is beginning to take hold in other areas showing us that there is a nutritious soil filling the gaps and holding those stones together. Even droppings left by animals providing more nutrition to the growing land around it. All of these signs tell us what is there. My research practice is to be a witness through more than just sight.

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My practice always begins before the site is located. The areas are often non existent on maps and therefore planning is not straightforward from the studio. The intention is to find an area that is not accessible, often surrounded by vast areas of  'nothingness' or alternatively as seen in the first series of works in 2019 large industrial sites. This intern suggests rich communities of wild life as of yet undisturbed.

The Action of searching out these areas is basic. With a compass glued to my steering wheel I can at least have an idea of where I am going. Often I spend days driving to areas of the horizon that I feel will be interesting. Once there the act of walking, climbing, scrambling becomes my only tool; this being the least impactful process.

At first the experience of finding a site / field / location is not welcoming. I do my best to avoid private land, however have stumbled into private roads that surround nuclear power plants in the past and have been moved on. My position is not that of agitator, I am not there to cause trouble or even to present an opinion, to the best of my ability my practice is intended to be an observer of the small details often over looked.

Experiencing the location is short and regular. By staying in locations for long periods of time I am impacting on the land. I am there to record data. Audio recordings are taken to remind me of the land, and footprint trackers are left out for 24 hours allowing the resident communities to collaborate with me unknowingly. Much like the 'Hyper Drawing Movement in 2016' I am allowing the site to speak for itself. Often using my camera to take a frozen in time capture of a particular plant or seed on the ground. Documenting a piece of rubbish that has blown in and changed form over the days or weeks that I am there.

I am witnessing something that I must not influence, no matter how hard it is to not clean up crisp packets or hang around watching a vole or otter walking through the track pads. My position is that of narrator and observer and nothing more.

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Use of Gaps

Instead of my work being something which is looked at or consumed at distance, I invite my audience to become participants in the work.  In doing so I provide entry points for my audience to enter and assemble the work. I’m interested in presenting these gaps as fragments or a range of evidence, in which my audience can collate their own understanding about a place from.

For my illustration-research-practice, the process is the work. The presentation of this therefore lies within the physical ‘showing’ or ‘doing’. My work explores the close human relationship to landscapes, and therefore invites the audience to reconsider their proximity and relationship to the land, by collapsing the space between them. So that the audience experiences this space between, it is important that they are thrust into this space and move around within it. Here, they become active participants in both the storytelling process and how the narrative is presented in space.

As The Walker in the Landscape exists as a sound piece, it requires the audience to take the narrative and experience it in a location of their choice. As they walk, look and listen, they bridge the gap between what they are seeing and what they are hearing - effectively occupying the role of the Walker and the Narrator in the script.

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Experience
Communication
Perception
Viewer / Audience / Participant
Authorship
Intention

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Process / Action
Duration
Reflection
Instinction
Intuition
Intervention
Collaboration
Location / Site

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Location/ Site
Experience
Action
Witness
Intention
Position
Surrounding

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"Enhance user experience"
"For the audience experience"

We hear about the word 'experience' a lot when we assume that in a situation, besides the creator itself, someone else will be there. Rely on different media, experiences can be passed to one another and generate memorable elements. It is a cohesion of space, visual, sensation and feeling. It takes time to consume. But why do we want an experience, what it's for, and where it comes from?

The transmission of an experience must have a process of retelling. Although when we face a well-designed scenario, as a traveller or ghost floating above in a virtual reality world, the traces of the creator are always hidden. When we explore it, all we get is our first-perspective experience, and it seems doesn’t matter whether it was predicted.

We gained memories from it. But can we piece together a sense of experience through others' perspectives and memories?

The words 'illustration' and 'illustrate' have a sense of duration. An illustrator takes itself as a translator and narrates it to others, whether the receiver will appear as predicted. It inevitably involves a process of digestion and transformation. Instead of taking the last part as a purely visual presentation, whether to make the process itself as receivable information become an experiment for illustration practice.

This is also a form of creating deliverable experiences but with unpredictability, strangeness, even direct contact with other people's memory, to piece together an experience of our own, to have a memory as an observer.

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Homes in Mobility: An illustrated dialogue is the final research project for my MRES course at the RCA. Since graduating from the RCA, I have been working in agencies doing art direction and design work.

Coming from a British design education background, Homes in Mobility as well as my other uni projects mostly have an emphasis on illustration as a process — a process of thinking through illustrating. Findings are revealed through the journey of illustrating. While in an agency context, an outcome (for example, a KV art direction) is first proposed to make sure the design idea is accessible to the client catering for business need, afterwards illustration might be processed as a solution. The agencies are fast paced therefore an iterative reflective process can barely be applied. After graduating, I identified a glitch in my practice that the agency work is more or less disconnected from what I’ve been taught for years.

This reminds me of a question raised by an audience during the conference that asks how do you see the commercial side of our work. Surely we need diverse and varied illustration work (eg. academic, commercial, experimenting…), I have no means to argue against this, but want to question how to make our projects more sustainable in the transition between academic and post-uni life.

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Illustration as an act of doing

Practice :

My Illustration practice is bound within the process. Focusing on methodology allows me to critically reflect and investigate through making, as I consider illustration to be many acts of doing, showing or questioning something. I operate between studio practice and fieldwork, carrying my research between these spaces as I engage with landscapes both physically and through their representation in literature, film and archival documentaries.

My area of illustration specialism lies within narrative and storytelling, however I'm interested in challenging the parameters of text and image by constructing narratives beyond the page. Through my practice-led-research, I am continuing to explore the spatial potential of narratives as they temporarily occupy and activate a space when being performed or spoken.

Use of Fieldwork in my Illustration practice

My illustration research practice uses fieldwork as a method to unearth narrative potential in landscapes. Site visits allow me to engage closely with my subject, landscapes - however unlike many site specific practices, I occupy sites without an agenda. Instead of going out in search of something specific to capture, for me it is about being present in the landscape itself - being observant and allowing it to speak to me. Simple actions such as walking, sitting, looking, reflecting and writing allow me to contemplate my surroundings and consider its overlooked details. These descriptions and reflections are the material generated onsite and are revisited back in the studio.

Illustration as Process

Within my practice, the act of Illustrating comes from the process. Whether that be in how I engage with landscapes through words, how I read and edit films to retell narratives, or how I assemble text and image off the page. The process is both the investigation and the communication, which enables me to think and show through actions. Therefore as we move beyond thinking about illustration as just a practiced style, and explore it as a series of things we do - it encourages us to find more appropriate methods of communication and inquiry.

Use of Gaps

I provide entry points for my audience to enter the work, inviting them in as participants.As my work explores the human relationship to landscapes, it is important that the audience is positioned in this liminal space between when experiencing the work.

I’m interested in these gaps as being fragments in which the audience gather and collage their understanding from.  As The Walker in the Landscape exists as a sound piece, it requires the audience to take the narrative and experience it in a location of their choice. As they walk, look and listen, they bridge the gap between what they are seeing and what they are hearing, effectively occupying the role of the Walker and the Narrator in the script.

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My Position
'The Importance of Not Being Present' is a series of works in response to areas of land that are re-healing themselves without human interaction. These areas of land are communities of non-human life and therefore I view myself as a 'trespasser' into their world. I always stated that the work was not a response but more a collaboration/observation with the inhabitants of the land, this therefore means it is not for me to interpret the findings but instead to present what 'The Field' is saying and doing.

Outside of the visual
Using sound is a valuable element of my practice as it provides a voice to those that are not on the ground. It also allows for the weather to speed. The sound and imagery placed together provides a space for the viewer/audience to totally immerse themselves into my world of experiencing this space.

Time and repatition
Time plays a huge role in 'The Importance of Not Being Present' once I have circled areas looking for ways into hard to reach sites without damaging the residents of 'The Field' the land becomes more accessible mentally and physically. Repeated visits to my third site every three months for two years has resulted in an emotional attachment to the quarry and the elements that hold it together. I start to notice a particular piece of plastic that has been in the same place for two years (a tiny purple handle from a Childs toy). Other than breaking down due to the rock movement it stays in the same physical space a contrast to the rock and vegetation. Particular plants wind around the roots and then fall to the ground when the rocks freeze and dry in the sun. These little parts of the sites personality highlight that this space is still un-discovered and allowed to heal. The publications never state where these places are, they are not an invitation to visit but more a statement highlighting what happens when land is allowed to re-heal and adapt to our new climate itself.

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Congratulations all. Loved the overlaps with Catrin’s talk yesterday and the ambition for illustration practice.

A definition of illustration as rooted in process is essential. Moving away from illustration as a style and towards Illustration as something we do - the action of illustrating - I think Sinead or Peter said “visualising action” which was great!  This feels a more fitting way of representing what a contemporary illustration practice can be. I find the conversation around illustrations relationship to Fine Art really unhelpful. I wonder if the word ‘Fine’ is the problem, is it entangled with a colonised approach to thinking about art history? Is it the idea of illustration as something critical and rigorous where the cross over becomes murky?

The commercial question again reduces illustration. If we are thinking through a definition centred on process then we also need to embrace other spaces in which illustration can be practiced and where its value can be celebrated. For me, the student work presented today really encapsulates an approach to illustration that is completely necessary. It is not to take away all of the amazing commercial work/projects but to expand the space of an illustration discipline, celebrating difference!

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What is a project's relationship to time? Does it ever end? What is the scale of time ?

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What do you each see as instructive examples of other practitioners doing field study?

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... in illustration  which captures the ambiguity and  fluidity of migration experiences

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diagram of process 2

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diagram of process 1